[101]-2.
The Phillip of these two poems is, I suppose, the hedge-sparrow or dunnock, that gentle and happy little cousin of the warblers—as light and lovely in voice as they are on the wing. As everyone knows, a bullfinch can be taught to whistle like a baker's boy, and will become so jealous of his mistress that he will hiss and ruff with rage at every stranger. Jackdaws and magpies, too, will become friends to a friend. But a lady whom I have the happiness to know has a nightingale that was hatched in captivity, and so has never shared either the delights or the dangers of the wild. So easy is he in her company that he will perch on her pen-tip as she sits at table, and sing as if out of a garden in Damascus.
[102]. "He Would Chirp."
" ... As she (St. Douceline) sat at meat, if anyone brought her a flower, a bird, a fruit, or any other thing that gave her pleasure, then she fell straightway into an ecstasy, and was caught up to Him Who had made these fair creatures.... One day she heard a lonely sparrow sing, whereupon she said to her companions, 'How lonely is the song of that bird!' and in the twinkling of an eye she was in an ecstasy, drawn up to God by the bird's voice...."
The above is from A Medieval Garner, and this, from a Note to "A Saint's Tragedy," by Margaret L. Woods: When the blessed Elizabeth "had been ill twelve days and more, one of her maids sitting by her bed heard in her throat a very sweet sound, ... and saying, 'Oh, my mistress, how sweetly thou didst sing!' she answered, 'I tell thee, I heard a little bird between me and the wall sing merrily; who with his sweet song so stirred me up that I could not but sing myself.'"
"Loving Redbreasts." (line 31)
My dear, do you know
How a long time ago,
Two poor little children,
Whose names I don't know,